


we gotta let go of all of our ghosts

by hitlikehammers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (In Every Sense of That Term), And If Bucky Barnes Can't Trust a Plaque-In-A-Box What Can He Trust Huh?, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes is a World-Class Nerd, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Fondue, Happy Ending, Humor, Idiots Who Don't Use Their Words, M/M, Miscommunication, No Seriously There's a Little Plaque-In-A-Box That Says So, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, SO MUCH FLUFF, Science Bros 2.0, Shared Life Experience, So Much Snark, Star Wars - Freeform, Steve Rogers Feels, Stupid Boys, Supersoldiers in Love, Tony Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s just hard, really, if he’s honest: this time, more than the first, here in a new millennium, having found Bucky again against all odds, in a time where there was hope, where they <i>could</i> have been…</p><p>Well. It’s just that it’s bad enough to come in second place to a Stark once in his lifetime.</p><p>But <i>twice</i> might just be more than Steve can bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we gotta let go of all of our ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This has been brewing in my head for almost two years now. It looks nothing like I thought it would. I think I like it better this way.
> 
> Love to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad) for looking it over, and credit to [Adele](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9XwBms_ooM) for the title.

One of the early sense memories he gets back is the way in which the two-pronged stick felt in his right hand. The twirl of his wrist just so— _you’re a natural, Barnes!_ —to make the straggling strands wrap around and break of their own accord, eventually, as all things do: no drips, no waste, no mess.

 _So this is fondue_ , he’d said, cheeky grin as he talked with his mouth open, as Howard grinned right back, playful, kid-in-a-candy-shop because Bucky’d figured out by then that what Howard loved more than just about anything was knowing what other people didn’t: not so much to lord it over them, but to bring them aboard and watch them experience a thing for the very first time. He got off on showing people how much bigger the world really was, how many small pleasures could add up to joy, regardless of how fleeting joy could be.

So Howard watched as he chewed, and smiled back.

 _This is fondue_.

__________________________

There’s alcohol involved, which oddly does nothing to ease the conversation for either one of them: Bucky, because of the metabolism thing, and Tony, well.

Tony’s been drinking alcohol like water for ages. His tolerance is absurd.

That said, if either of them is going to crack, going to start to feel the edge come off even a little, it’ll be Stark.

And it is, in the end.

“Look.”

Bucky turns, watches Tony swallow as he leans forward to set his glass on the table.

“I’m getting kind of sick of the sidelong glances when we’re in a room together, Klondike.”

Which is why they’re here, alone, long after everyone else has tucked in for the night. It doesn’t happen often. And it’s usually silence and a drink that passes between them, but there’s something about Tony that makes Bucky hurt as much as it sets him at ease. Bucky was close to Howard, fast pals in shit circumstances.

Tony isn’t his father, but there’s something there. There’s something that resonates the same in Bucky’s system, draws him in.

Must run in the genes.

“I don’t remember, you know.”

It’s the first time Bucky’s said anything about it. Acknowledged that elephant in the room. His targets were rarely on record. Just Mission X, vague references, details now dead with the few people who held them. And the truth is: Bucky remembers cars. Remembers guns. So many, so often. He doesn’t remember Howard’s face after Europe, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Tony nods.

“I wouldn’t blame you.” He reaches for his glass and drains it, voice roughened with it. “If you did.”

Bucky frowns. He doesn’t _know_ , sure, but even the _possibility_ wakes him up in a cold sweat with horrifying regularity.

“What?”

“Be kinda hypocritical,” Tony shrugs, doesn’t make eye contact. “I mean, I loved my parents, right? But hell, Barnes, all this?”

He shakes his head and gestures around them: simple, by Stark standards, but still something out of the future Howard always talked of—the now that Bucky barely dreamed could ever be.

“All this was built on blood.” He says it so matter-of-fact, like. Plain and simple. He’s come to terms with it, somehow. That gives Bucky a twisted, shadowy sort of hope.

“And I never even bothered to stop and think through what it all meant, and I had the _choice_ to. My mind was _always_ my own. You, though, I mean,” Stark breathes out slow, steels himself against a thing Bucky can’t see or know.

“I’d be more of a dick than even _I’m_ comfortable with, to hold it against you,” Tony finally says, and it feels like the end of a discussion Bucky’s barely taken part in, but feels infinitely lighter for. “If it happened. If it _was_ you.”

Neither of them speak for a good long while, but when Bucky notices that both of their glasses are empty, he reaches out to top them off.

It feels like a recognition. A shift, somehow: so small, but cosmic in the way it changes the weight of the room, the strength of a breath.

It’s so weird, how the smallest shift can turn whole tides.

“He used to talk about you, my dad.” It’s Tony, again, who breaks the quiet. “People’d think it’d be Cap, and it was, but fuck,” Tony swirls his glass, smiling idly as he stares into nothing by way of the past. “He was your biggest fan.”

Tony shakes his head, then tilts it back to look up at the ceiling.

“You Howlies had a comeback when I was in grade school,” he says. “I was such a Bucky fanboy you've got no idea,” he snaps upward, and pierces Bucky with a newly-focused gaze: open, but piercing.

“I’m not even ashamed to tell you to your face.”

Bucky snorts, and ducks his head. A _fanboy_ , Tony Stark. Jesus. 

“I hated that you and my dad were friends, because I figured that would’ve meant that I wouldn’t get along with you for shit,” Tony carries on; “but it was all just stupid kid stuff. I’d never meet that guy. Bucky Barnes was dead.”

Bucky sobers a little, because, well. 

Life’s funny that way.

“But I think,” Tony finally comes around to a point, fishing for the right words before settling, almost grudgingly on:

“I _don’t_ hate you, basically.”

Which Bucky knows enough, by now, is kind of a rousing endorsement. From a Stark.

“You remind me of him,” Bucky says, not entirely sure if he should say it, not entirely sure if he shouldn’t, but fuck it. 

“A lot, actually,” he smiles, small and a little wistful. “But then not, too.”

“Given the fact that he was the brawn of Project Rebirth, you'd have thought that good ol’ Howard would have been more inclined toward fawning over Cap,” Tony says, not exactly acknowledging anything, but not rebuffing it either. Good enough. “His greatest creation, or whatever.”

And _that_ sounds like an open wound that rubs its own salt, if it’s anything at all.

“They got on well enough,” Bucky shrugs. “But Howard and I _bonded_.”

Tony swigs his drink and raises an eyebrow. Bucky just smirks.

“ _Science_ , man,” Bucky enthuses, closing his eyes and remembering flying cars that weren’t quite there and then, remembering long conversations about how they could _get_ there. 

Those are _good_ memories.

“Engineering. Building shit,” Bucky finally slips back to the present. “Steve could care less, even now.”

Bucky turns back to Tony, who’s staring at him with his drink suspended, frozen halfway to his open mouth.

“Are you telling me,” Tony says, tone carefully controlled; “that you're a big fucking _nerd_ , Barnes?”

Bucky raises a brow; a challenge. “Daddy never gave me away?”

“Umm, apparently not, the son of a bitch. That makes you _ten_ times cooler.” Tony grins to himself, self-satisfied. “I knew I was ahead of the curve, even in my historical pop culture preferences.”

Bucky scoffs. “ _Only_ ten?”

“Well, I mean, you've never been in the workshop, so I can't know for sure,” Tony explains, like it’s common knowledge. “It's important, to gauge what gets you off, before I pass judgement.”

The undertone, the euphemism implied is thick, and Bucky snorts.

“You're crude as hell.”

Tony eyes him critically. “And _you're_ not?”

“I never said that.”

And where Bucky fights a grin, Tony doesn’t bother. 

“Know what? What the hell.” And then Tony’s on his feet, reaching out for Bucky’s glass. “You tired?”

“Serum makes tired kind of a moot point,” Bucky shrugs, suspicious but more so intrigued; “unless there’s good reason for the contrary.”

“Wanna go downstairs now, see what trips your trigger?”

And there’s a childish, innocent, undarkened excitement that sparks through his veins at those words; a thing he hadn’t remembered before that moment, and certainly never expected to feel ever again.

He’s fucking _giddy_.

“Kinda,” he says, and lets the grin he’s hiding curl out full on his lips; “Yeah.”

__________________________

Simply put: they should have done this shit _ages_ ago.

Because Tony? Tony’s not his dad, but Tony’s a fucking riot. An asshole, and a trial, and annoying as shit, but so’s Bucky, really, always has been. And he and Tony have a strange amount of things in common, some good, most not-so-good, but if they’d hashed shit out in stray comments and innocuous shrugs in the face of daring, eyes-on-the-welding moments where they bared their souls a little bit, well, they’d have gotten over the debilitating tension between them—and between each of them and _everyone else_ —fucking months ago.

Because when Tony rolls his eyes at Bucky’s tinkering and says “I managed better in a fucking cave,” Bucky shoots back with, “It’s called a work-in-progress, asshat, and the Soviets did better than your tin suit under _communism_ ,” and the exchange between them _means_ something.

Because from the banter of “kept my heart beating with a magnet” versus “survived my heart stopping and starting on ice for almost a century,” to the quieter things like “I don’t like sand,” or “The cold feels right, still, and I hate it”—from an unanswered question that neither of them remembers who asked, because both of them wonder and neither knows: “Do you ever wish they didn’t find you?”—

Inside all of that, there’s camaraderie. There’s something shared that shouldn’t have to be, and isn’t lightened in the doubling, but is made a little less bitter on the tongue.

Steve tells Bucky that he smiles more, lately. Bucky _feels_ like smiling more, honestly—like maybe he’s got a chance at something real, maybe he’s not broken beyond keeping, or even wanting, if he’s still broken beyond full repair; maybe he, and Steve, maybe there’s—

“So,” Tony interrupts Bucky’s thoughts, and given the direction of said thoughts into territories too deeply wanted and too fucking impossible, the interruption’s for the best. “I’m gonna come at this with really fucking impressive delicacy and consideration for your complex feelings.”

Bucky flips up his safety goggles. “Oh, really?”

“Yes,” Tony gestures wildly with his soldering torch. “You’re going to be so proud of my consideration, like, you’ll give me a medal.”

Bucky casts his eyes around to seek the thing he’s seen in passing more times than he can count: glass case. Metal inside.

He finds it on a bookcase, grabs it and presents it with due ceremony.

“And the award goes to,” he bows a little, pure mocking and snark; holds it out only for Tony to swat it away, hitting it straight across the proclamation on the base:

 _Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart_.

Apt. And who’da thunk. 

“The _arm_ ,” Tony says, with the kind of gravitas that, like, befits the Ark of the damned Covenant. 

“I’ll give you a fucking medal for waiting this long to ask to take it apart,” Bucky scoffs, offering the placard again only to be flat out ignored, this time, in the face of Tony’s weighty stare.

“I don’t want to take it apart.”

Bucky frowns: he’d never had hearing problems, per se, but the serum had perfected things beyond the phenomenon of hearing incorrectly. And yet, Bucky is absolutely _certain_ that he has heard the words that just came out of Tony Stark’s mouth wrong.

“Okay, yes, fine,” Tony finally caves, and Bucky doesn’t even indulge in a knowing smirk, because that was fucking _obvious_. “I kinda do want that.”

“Kinky bastard,” Bucky goads, and Tony flips him off, and _then_ Bucky indulges in a smile.

“I wanna build a new one,” Tony blurts out, no holds barred, leaving Bucky once more with a sense of having heard incorrectly, but this time…

This time’s different. This time flutters between his ribs and makes him feel a little like he doesn’t fit inside the skin he’s only just learned how to wear again.

“And, I’m thinking,” Tony continues, oblivious to Bucky’s inner turmoil; “what if we built it together. You have final say, you have full input, your hands making your...hand. Owning it, making it yours, more than…”

Tony trails off, uncomfortable with the territory, and Bucky maybe just stares at him for a few long moments before clearing his throat of the sudden tightness there and nodding a little bit dumbly.

“Yeah,” he says, thankful that his voice is relatively strong; relatively clear. “I think I’d like that.”

Understatement of the fucking century, mind, but Bucky’s not particularly comfortable with the emotional undercurrents here, either.

So they just let it ride with a smile on both sids, and Tony’s enthusiastic:

“Awesome.”

__________________________

Okay, so spas aren’t new or anything. Like, Bucky’s been in enough hot tubs to know that’s not so impressive.

But hot tub, plus whatever these appetizer finger foods are, plus a personal masseuse and a classical quartet complete with a harp bigger than Bucky’s substantially-sized body?

Holy _fuck_.

“You really are richer than god,” Bucky marvels, and lets out a low moan when the hands on his back, just at the surface of the water dig into a particularly nasty knot.

“If there’s a god?” Tony says, sipping champagne that’s as bubbly as the jacuzzi. “Yeah, probably.”

“This is amazing,” Bucky breathes as his masseuse, one Charlene Magic-Hands, kneads unforgivably outward until he goes boneless by little centimeters of flesh.

“I know,” Tony says, haughty as fuck, and maybe Bucky’s enough of a child that he splashes water hard enough to land in Stark’s drink. So _there_.

“Cap!” Tony says, dumping his now-contaminated champagne and grabbing for another, already-waiting flute. “Come join!”

Bucky turns, and if his body wasn’t already flushed with the heat of the water and the ecstasy of the tension being worked out of his muscles, the sight of Steve in just his underarmor, clinging to him like a second fucking skin but _better_ , well.

It’s a good thing Bucky’s wearing swim shorts to Tony’s flagrant fucking nudity, because…

Well, _damn_.

“Stevie, c’mon,” Bucky tries to coax him anyway, because it’s not like he lit this torch yesterday. He’s lived with this feeling, this being at-odds with everything he breathes in for most of his life. Because he’d rather disown himself than be apart from Steve. Maybe that’s inconvenient.

But it’s the goddamn truth.

“This is insane,” Bucky tries to sell the water, the massage, he even pops one of the little bacon truffle things into his mouth and hums out his pleasure at the taste. “Mmm, hmm hmmm!”

“I think he means the food is also insane,” Tony translates while Bucky chews.

“Mmm,” Bucky nods emphatically, because this thing is _amazing_ , and that’s not just the largely-being-fed-intravenously-for-decades thing talking. “Hmm-mm!”

Steve watches them, and smiles, but Bucky knows Steve like the back of his hands, and that smile.

That smile is sad.

“Another time,” he promises without intent. “I’m beat,” he lies without finesse. 

“I’ll leave you guys to it.”

And then he’s gone, and while Bucky aches oddly for it, and needs to figure out why, it’s probably for the best anyway.

He’s popped one hell of a stiffy beneath the water, and if Steve had jumped in with them, well.

Bucky’s kept this one close to the chest for a long time, sure, but he’s not a fucking saint, basically, is what he’s trying to say.

“You been on a roller coaster since the Cyclone?” Tony asks, shaking him from his lovesick, pining self-pity, and Bucky’s grateful for that.

Also, no: he hasn’t been. Which makes Tony smile a little too wide to be safe, honestly.

Because it’s _Tony_ they’re talking about.

__________________________

Steve strips without thinking, automatic once he gets to the floor he shares with Bucky, the floor that’s been quieter than usual, now that Bucky spends so much time in the lab, in the workshop. 

With _Tony_.

Steve strips by rote, and that’s probably how his frustration, the thing he absolutely will _not_ call heartbreak, gets vented out through the ripping of his clothing at the seams.

Well, shit.

It’s not even like Steve has the excuse of this being new, of this being something he has to _learn_ to shrug off like it doesn’t cut like a fucking knife to think of, let alone to _see_ —Tony’s unapologetic nudity to Bucky’s only slightly less bare form, and yet Steve had felt the flush of feverish _need_ at just the lines of Bucky’s chest above the water, the droplets curving along each swath of muscle, trailing the ungodly, damn near _sinful_ , so fucking _wrong_ to be sexy as hell but it _is_ , that horrible, beautiful, achingly perfect and singular line of scar tissue where skin spreads into metal, that Steve’s come in his sheets like a fucking teenager more than once thinking of the taste of, thinking of putting his lips in heated, heartfelt worship—

It’s not _new_ , and Steve shouldn’t be reacting like this, is the thing. It’d been the same with Howard, after all.

Because they’d been chummy as hell, hadn’t they: Steve had grown muscles, and had been desperate to prove to Bucky how strong, how healthy, how able, how _worthy_ he was now that Bucky wasn’t tied to him for long-held affection, sure, but even Steve couldn’t pretend there wasn’t an element of obligation to it that _came_ with that kind of familial bond. And if the lust that had deepened heavy and heady and true into love overnight, years before, was ever going to have a chance at being recognized, was ever going to have a shot at learning to be returned, then Steve had to prove himself. Steve had to show he was a sure bet, now—not some gamble that may or may not have still been breathing come any given morning.

Steve had grown muscles, and tried like _hell_ to prove himself, but Bucky’d spent most of their time alone gushing over Howard’s inventions, or Howard’s sketches for new technology, or Howard’s plane or Howard’s food and Howard, Howard, _Howard_.

Steve couldn’t blame him, really. Howard was one of a kind, and offered something Steve never could, and that was the shared interest of Bucky’s brilliant _mind_ , and Steve should have known his best friend, the love of his goddamn life well enough to figure that some flashy muscles weren’t going to do a damn thing to turn his eyes. Bucky was a vain peacock, but at the end of the night, he wasn’t ever _shallow_.

He’d never got so far as to be happy for Bucky, not through and through and honest about it, but he’d made his peace. So watching him with Tony—so much like his father, but then so much _not_ , and in all the spaces of _not_ , more like Bucky in the _now_ , and a damn good match if Steve was being objective, which he isn’t, and can never be in this, with _this_ —but watching him with Tony shouldn’t be such a blow. He _knows_ how to do this, it’s just—

It’s just hard, really, if he’s honest. Bad enough to come in second place to a Stark once in his lifetime.

But twice might just be more than Steve can bear.

__________________________

Bucky’s seen a lot. Done a lot. Been around the block more than once, witnessed the impossible, lived through the unthinkable to sit and tell the tale. Not much shocks him.

But for a good long moment, here: he’s fucking _speechless_.

“Vibranium?” is all that he can manage, in the end, stating the goddamn obvious as he stares open-mouthed and material.

“You never told me that you knew the Wakandans,” Tony says, some weird mix between smugness at getting one over on Bucky, and petulance that _Bucky never told him he knew the Wakandans_.

“Only met ‘em once,” Bucky defends halfheartedly, still a bit bowled over, still staring at the metal a little in awe. “With—”

“My dad,” Tony nods. “They remembered you.”

“Last I heard, they were out for my blood like half the rest of the planet,” Bucky shoots back, but genuinely, he doesn’t know how any of this adds up, because the Wakandans think he’s responsible for a royal death, and as usual: no proof, and no fucking memory of Bucky’s to say yes or no. 

“Funny how a not-guilty verdict doesn’t really make a fucking dent in general opinion.”

Not that Bucky’s so sure he deserves a shift in public opinion, but that depends on the day, really. 

And he’s getting better at it. Forgiving himself.

“Eh,” Tony shrugs, shakes him out of that place in his head. “I may have elaborated on the prevailing public rhetoric. Their tune changed quick.”

“Tony,” Bucky sighs, and draws his name out with a warning, because if Tony did anything, _said_ anything that wasn’t true or finagled something even _remotely_ not-above-board—

“They offered it willingly,” Tony raises his hands, palms out: swear up. “Like I said, the royal family’s passed down your legend across a couple generations, now. Once I told them about Azzano, they remembered the stories about your capture in the 40s. They said they could see you had been altered beyond the human genome. Knowing what they know now, they said, they feel they should have acted.”

Bucky’s a bit stunned by that, honestly. Tony just looks at him, level-like. As if it’s the obvious conclusion to reach.

“And I thought Steve had a fucking hero complex, Jesus,” Bucky whistles low, not sure what to make of it, honestly.

“Well, complex or no,” Tony shrugs, “you’ll now have an arm of vibranium, with T’Challa’s blessing.” He looks at Bucky over those infuriating red sunglasses—they’re _indoors_ for fuck’s sake—

“If you want one.”

And Bucky huffs, and smacks Tony’s arm with annoyance and a growing, disbelieving excitement he can’t quite push down, because fuck _yes_.

He _wants_ one.  
__________________________

“Cap split his first pair of pants on the uniform.”

Bucky nearly snorts his vodka, because oh, that’d been a good day.

“Right down the asscrack.”

“In front of everyone.”

He shakes his head around a mouthful, and swallows hard before answering. “Not _everyone_.”

Tony looks seriously put out, at that.

It’s a strange little game they play—truth or fuckin’ with ya, because with Tony Stark there’s no dare too absurd, and they’re also not five fucking years old—but it’s better than regular drinking games, in which nothing fun ever fucking happens but plain and boring alcohol ingestion, between the two of them.

“He was going commando.”

Oh, how Bucky _wished_.

“Fuckin’ with ya.” 

S’a good game, though, because honestly. History’s come up with some _weird_ shit about World War II, and Howard apparently told a coupla’ tall fuckin’ tales about the Commandos in his time.

“You helped with the shield,” Tony goes considerably less raunchy, but unexpectedly close to the chest; “the original one.”

And he probably has no idea it’s close to the chest, either, but Steve had been so capable, beautiful as ever but so different, so beyond needing his friend, his left hand in a fight: he hadn’t needed Bucky as his shield anymore. Hadn’t needed _Bucky_ , and that’d killed him worse than any close shave would have before, if it’d been closer.

More than anything he’d gone through had managed since, really, for however short a time.

So sue him for being sentimental, for being desperate and in love. Sue him for begging Howard to let him do _something_ to help refine and ready that shield for Stevie. To put some small bit of himself into it, so that if Steve didn’t need him anymore, he’d still _have_ him, and Bucky could sleep at night.

“Don’t tell Steve.”

“Why the fuck not?” Tony frowns, because of course it doesn’t make any sense. Not to him.

“Just, don’t.” Bucky empties his glass, and pours himself another, and lucky for him, Tony gets what that means.

“Fine,” he concedes, and Bucky’s damn grateful. 

“Dad gave you a taste of your first single malt.”

Bucky snorts.

“He probably thought so, but that’s his ego talking,” Bucky answers; this is safer territory, even if his first single malt was stolen with Steve at his side. “Not true.”

Tony looks mollified, and that quickly morphs into the sadistic glee that Bucky’s learned to fear, just a little.

“You _fondued_.” Tony waggles his brows, but Bucky will not take that bait. 

“That is true.”

“You hated it.”

“He wished,” Bucky said, and _that’s_ very true, and fuck is he craving some plain old cheddar right about now. “I loved it, it was delicious, and he never took me again because not even Stark-sized wallets could have slaked my impossible lust for that melty perfect cheese.”

Tony snorts. “I think Pepper has a set upstairs.”

Bucky feels his eyes go wide, feels his heartbeat pick up just a little because, oh my god.

“You’re shitting me.”

“Yeah, fuckin’ with you,” Tony grins evilly, and oh fucking hell, this man is such a bastard.

Bucky grabs the cap of their current bottle and flings it at Tony. _Hard_.

“She got rid of it in her last purge of the things or whatever. Sorry.”

He doesn’t even _sound_ sorry. Obviously not a _real_ fan of fondue.

“Dickhead.”

Tony just smirks.

“You’re a bad pilot, and you almost crashed them in the Alps once.”

“Fuckin’ with you. I was an awesome pilot.” Bucky drinks again. “Still am, in fact,” and wow, Howard told such _lies_ about him, where the hell was his sense of honoring the dead and shit?

Oh, wait. Yeah. He was a _Stark_.

“Asshole,” Bucky mutters, mostly to himself.

“You’re allergic to chocolate.”

“Bullshit,” Bucky sits up straighter at that, because Howard really _was_ an asshole, and this was a prime example. “That’s what he told people so he could swipe my share whenever we got our hands on some. And he’d put his mouth on it quick as anything, so I wouldn’t even want it any more. Not just like, biting a chunk off but like, all over.” He moves his tongue around in what’s probably an unnecessary demonstration, but whatever. 

“Your dad was a dick, basically.”

Tony doesn’t argue.

“Cipriani.”

Bucky frowns. “Who now?”

“God, what was the first one,” Tony takes a moment to think before he ventures: “Harry’s Bar?”

“Wait,” Bucky digs deep, thinks hard. “Venice?” Tony nods, and Bucky smiles. 

“Oh yeah.”

“Fuck,” and Tony honestly sounds disappointed for a second before he shrugs it off.

“Well, you’re still in for a treat.” Bucky would wonder where this is going, but he knew Howard, and he knows Tony, by now, and they’re obviously going to whatever Cipriani is. “LA or Upstate?”

“Don’t care,” Bucky answers, because he doesn’t. But he does care about one thing. 

“Can there be chocolate?”

Tony nods, sips at his drink. “Not the biggest fan, honestly.”

Fucking _blasphemer_. But—

“Awesome,” Bucky decides, because it’s not a hard verdict to come to. “More for me.”

Tony snorts, and fills both their glasses again.

__________________________

“And how many more are there?”

Which is not to imply that he didn’t enjoy the first two. Bucky very much enjoyed them, particularly this last one. He’s just, you know. Wondering.

Not that he has anything else to be doing. This Cipriani place, man. Pretty wild.

“Five, technically, but I’m of the opinion you can skip three of those.”

“Oh no,” Bucky protests, because if he’s here to brush up on his popular culture and indulge in far too many special effects involving _space_ of all awesome things, he’s not cutting corners. 

“No, go big or go home.”

Tony rolls to the center of the fucking gigantic bed, ignoring Bucky’s squeak of concern as the shift of weight almost tips over their massive bowls of popcorn.

“Right,” Tony agrees, and presses play on what the scrolling yellow letter proclaim to be _Return of the Jedi_. 

“So,” Tony says as he leans back on his pillow, and Bucky frowns, because yes he can multitask and read the intro text whilst having a conversation, but that doesn’t mean he _wants_ to. “You ever gonna tell Rogers?”

“Tell ‘im what, about the shield?” Bucky says, not looking away from the screen as he stuffs his mouth full of popcorn and talks around it because fuck it, he does what he wants. “No reason to.”

“Not what I meant,” Tony sighs, but Bucky can tell something in that answer interests him, because he sees Tony perk up from the corner of his eye. 

“But humor me: why no reason?”

Bucky shrugs, and wonders if he can call for someone to bring them more fondue, because what about _popcorn_ fondue, like, _that’s_ an idea.

“Thing’s got a lot of memories in it,” Bucky says, and avoids thinking of the telltale scuffs of impact that never got buffed out, and that speak louder than anything else about where Steve’s head was, is.

To say nothing of Steve’s _heart_.

“And that’s why you won’t tell him.”

“Sure,” Bucky says, because he wants to not think about this. He’s enjoying this resort thing, and these movies, and this popcorn, and he’d like melted cheese right now, thanks, not a reminder that the man he’d die over and again for loves him like a _brother_ , and that’s arguably more than he deserves, if it’s a bullet to his own chest every time he acknowledges as much.

“Not about helping design it,” but Tony, of course, can let the thing fucking _lie_. “About the memories. Those bullet marks.”

Bucky freezes, his hand to his mouth, and one of the kernels of popcorn escapes his grasp and falls to the duvet as he turns to Tony, jaw a little hung wide. 

“I’m oblivious to a lot of shit,” Tony answers the unasked question. “But I’d actually have to _try_ in order to be oblivious to the two of you.”

Bucky bites his tongue, and the taste of butter and blood is an ugly thing.

“Ain’t like that,” he eventually grinds out.

“Ain’t it?” Tony tosses back, pushes hard: stubborn fucker. “Dad always wondered.” Tony muses, pretends to be far away, to be aimless, and he’s bad at it.

Pretending.

“Carter told him, years laters, that Rogers thought you and Howard were an item.”

Bucky’s jaw drops a little wider, but then Tony pauses, and turns to look him head on, and quick.

“You weren’t, were you?”

“God no,” Bucky coughs, gasps, laughs a little awkwardly. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Tony assures him; seems a little bit relieved, and understandably. Even Bucky doesn’t really want to ponder Howard’s sex life in too much detail.

Speaking of, he doesn’t want to ponder Tony’s either. Like father, like—

“You know he’s jealous, right?”

Bucky could play dumb, and ask who. He decides to play not-dumb, and ask the question he honestly can’t answer.

“Of _what_?”

“Anyone who looks at you wrong. Takes up your time.”

Bucky scoffs, because that’s bullshit, is what that is. Steve wouldn’t know _who_ took up his time, the man’s everywhere and anywhere all at once, doing whatever needs doing, saving the world and the cats in the trees, being everything he was always meant to be, the perfect bastard.

“He’s fucking gone on your dumb ass, Barnes,” Tony says simply, a little bit impatient with it, though fuck if Bucky knows why. “Don’t tell me you never saw that.”

“Steve loved Peggy,” Bucky answers, because that _is_ the answer to the question, and to all the questions that go along with it, like _why are you heartbroken, Bucky?_ and _why does that smile look sad?_

“Maybe,” Tony concedes; “in one way or another,” and Bucky’s hopeful that’s the end of it, and he can toss his handful of popcorn back and watch some space battles in fucking _peace_.

“But whatever,” Tony shakes his head, and carries on, because Bucky is not that fucking lucky. “Not the question I asked.”

“You technically didn’t ask a question.” Bucky volleys, but Tony won’t have it. 

“Won’t work on me, you’ve gotta know that by now.” 

And Bucky does, yeah. Can’t bullshit a bullshitter and all that.

Can’t blame a man for trying, though, either.

“He’s happy I’m back,” Bucky says, because that _is_ true, he won’t deny himself that much. “That’s it.”

“What was it during the war, then?” Tony pokes, pries, because the fucker doesn’t know when to stop, or maybe Bucky’s just gotten that good at hiding when he bleeds.

Maybe both.

“Same,” Bucky shakes his head. “He found me, after they started me on the serum,” Bucky swallows. “I was, they thought I was, he...”

Bucky doesn’t want to scratch that particular wound open right now. He can’t.

“He was just happy to have me back,” is what he settles on, the abridged version. “Fuck knows why, but—”

“Don’t,” Tony cuts him off, unexpectedly sharp. “You _know_ why.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Because it’d be different if Tony called him out plain and simple on being head over heels for Steve, because fine, yes. So long as Steve never found out, so long as Steve never had a reason to look at him funny or to walk away entirely, or hell, even to just try and treat him like nothing was different and make them live out a lie worse than the secret: as long as _Steve_ didn’t call him out, then Bucky’d own to it. _Fine_.

But this shit? This is nonsense. Steve _never_ —

“Look,” Tony says, voice flat, no-holds-barred. “I’ll bet you the whole extra week you’re giving me to go over your work on the arm and offer my input—”

“Meddle,” Bucky interrupts without thinking, automatic, because it’s Tony. And that man doesn’t know what the word _input_ means. “Your meddling week, because meddling is what you do. It’s what you’re doing _now_.”

“My week for _input_ ,” Tony raises his voice over him. “I will bet you that week that I’m right. If I’m wrong, we send it off as soon as we touch back down at the Tower.”

Fine, then. Bucky likes his design for his new arm just the way it is. Win-fucking-win. 

“But when you get home,” Tony continues to not be capable of shutting the fuck up; “I want you to tell him you had a great time, with me. I want you to sell it. The food. The drink. The films. The views. The bed. The _spa_ ,” Tony’s grin turns feral: “The masseuse that didn’t look like Capsicle _at all_.”

Bucky’s eyes widen, because he’d enjoyed that massage but yes, he’d spent half of his energy not getting hard as a rock at the fantasies of _other_ hands on him, like that, and— 

“Jesus, you _planned_ that.”

Tony neither confirms, nor denies, but he doesn’t have to.

“See what conclusion he draws, and read his reaction in the way that only you can,” Tony says instead. “And for once in your unnaturally long, freezer-burned life, don’t lie to yourself about what you see.”

And Tony’s tone has grown softer, but deeper, like it _means_ something. Bucky can _feel_ it.

“And _then_ tell me you don’t have his heart on a string.”

“I’m telling you, you’re wrong,” Bucky swallows, shakes his head, and wills away the burn in his eyes by looking down at his hands, crushed popcorn down to the kernels in each palm. 

“It’s the other way around.”

“Sure it is,” Tony says, like it’s scientific fact: specific heat or molar mass or some shit. “But that’s not _all_ it is, Barnes. Probably never has been, either. I’ll even throw in another week here, bet that along with my oversight on your arm-plans.”

And Bucky could use another week, once he kills any last stupid bit of hopeless hope in him, so: yeah. Fine.

“Deal,” Bucky agrees, if grudgingly. “But I locked those files to changes, Stark. Can’t just go in now and make the alterations.”

“No need,” Tony grins, leaning back and grabbing for some popcorn before he reaches for the remote and tracks back to the beginning of the film.

“I’ve got more Star Wars to watch, anyway.”

__________________________

 

Bucky avoids it for about three hours, in which he is clear that he needs to “unpack” when Steve asks if he wants to grab dinner later. Saying no would be weird, and Bucky’s not going to fucking do weird with Steve, no, so he says sure, but he just wants to go through his shit.

Not like there aren’t robots to do that or anything. Not suspicious at all.

He’s absolutely not hiding in his room, in the larger floor-sized suite he does share with Steve but could feasibly, if he wanted, managed to see very little _of_ Steve in. If he wanted to.

Not that he _wants_ to or anything. Not like he’s _avoiding_ —

“Sergeant Barnes,” JARVIS’s voice comes from nowhere, and scares the fuck out of him, though he barely flinches for it. “Sir would like me to remind you that while my programming prevents him from seeing sensitive security footage in various areas of the Tower, the common areas of each floor are open to his viewing, within reason, and he would like to inform you, and I quote, that he will ‘put self-lubricating functions on every finger of your arm if you don’t stop the sad fucking panda on your couch from looking heartbroken in about five seconds’.”

Oh my god.

Bucky fucking _hates_ Tony Stark.

__________________________

“So, did you have a good time?”

Steve makes himself ask it. Because friends ask. And Bucky is—

Bucky is his friend. Bucky is his everything.

Steve’s a fucking pathetic bastard. Jesus.

“Great time,” Bucky says, and it takes him a minute, like he’s trying to decide something, and Steve doesn’t want to read into that, he really doesn’t, but it’s not even a choice.

Bucky’s never outright _said_ what he and Tony are, and Steve’s wondered if maybe he didn’t feel comfortable telling Steve, if maybe Steve had done something to make him question the trust between him, and yet for all that Steve’s beaten himself up over that question, he’s absolutely certain he’d rather continue on that route, now that the time has apparently come where Bucky’s decided that Steve’s allowed to know.

Oh, god.

Steve looks down at his plate of pasta and nearly vomits then and there for the way his stomach lurches, the way his heart twists.

“Tony’s great, you know? He didn’t have to do any of it, but of course, you know him, he pulls out all the stops,” Bucky smiles, and oh, Steve had been praying for that smile to come back and he’ll go to hell for wishing it away like a selfish asshole, now, and so he doesn’t.

He _doesn’t_.

“But it was all spa treatments and massages, oh god, this guy, Steve, and his _hands_ ,” Bucky moans, eyes closed, and Steve could probably get hard and come in like five seconds if he had no self control in that very moment.

And to say _probably_ is really just being conservative in the estimate.

“Stevie, man, I’ve been thawed for a while now, right, but I didn’t know food could taste like that, or the drinks! Oh my god, how many kinds of alcohol can they _make_? And you know how the beds here are like super soft and shit? We had this massive bed, and it was like a cloud’s gotta feel, you can’t even imagine it.”

Steve subtly puts his fork down, because yes. His chest feels tight, and it’s climbing up his throat, and if he doesn’t throw up, he’ll probably pass out.

There must have been more hope in him than he’d ever thought he could hold on to, for it to feel like this as it finally dies.

When he comes back to the conversation, between them, to the table and the room and the concentration it takes to breathe normally, there’s a thick silence in between them and oh. Shit. 

Bucky must have said something important. Something he needed an answer to.

It fucking kills him, but Steve can guess what it was. And what the answer needs to be.

And Bucky is his everything, like he said. So he’ll do it. He’ll die on this sword, no question.

“I’m so fuckin’ happy for you, Buck. For both of you.”

And it almost sounds like he _means_ it, too.

But Bucky, strangely, just keeps staring at him.

“Where’d you go just now?”

Steve stills, every inch of him motionless except the rampant pace of his heart.

“What do you mean?”

“Both of us,” Bucky says, a little philosophical, a little bit bemused. “You said both of us, like,” Bucky gesture between them across the table. 

“Like, you and me? You coulda come, Stevie, Tony wouldn’t have given a shit—”

“That woulda been a bit awkward, Buck.” And oh, _hell_ : the bitterness in Steve’s voice isn’t even something he can wish will be entirely overlooked.

But instead of calling him on it, instead of demanding apology or showing afront, Bucky does something else.

Something else entirely.

“Why’s that, Steve?”

Steve swallows around the raging of his pulse.

“I think you _know_ why, Bucky.”

Because even if he didn’t before, Steve’s given himself away. He’s always been a shitty liar, when it was Bucky he was trying to lie to. 

“Do I?” Bucky asks, seemingly innocent, but Steve can’t take him drawing this out, playing this _dumb_ , and Steve doesn’t want to believe that he’s hurt Bucky enough to make Bucky _cruel_ , but this is veering in that direction, and Steve might fall apart of it ends up there, full-stop.

“Don’t make me _say_ it, Buck,” Steve hisses, can barely get it out, but his pain doesn’t even register on Bucky’s face. The only thing that changes is that Bucky’s eyes get a little bit wider, every passing second.

“No, Steve,” Bucky says slowly. “I think maybe I do need you to say it.”

And Steve, who cannot deny Bucky a goddamn thing, doesn’t know if he is actually _capable_ of giving him _this_.

“I—”

“I was never with Howard, you know.”

Steve stops dumb. Lost at sea with that.

“ _What_?”

“Something Tony said,” Bucky shrugs. “Said you told Carter he and I were somethin’. Never took either of you for gossips, but you know, war’s boring in between cheating death, I get the need to speculate. Wasn’t true, of course, we were just friends.” Bucky looks up at him then, though, and there’s fear in those eyes the same strength as sheer will and resolve, and Steve doesn’t know what to do: is pinned down in that gaze and feels it, every cell in his body feels it, and oh, _god_.

“Gotta wonder why either one of you’d care, though. Unless she was into Howard, but that’d be weird, ‘cause she was gone as hell on you,” he pauses, thinks a minute. “Or _you_ were into Howard, which again, weird, because you loved the hell outta her, and—”

“No.”

Bucky stops, and narrows that penetrating gaze.

“No?”

“No,” Steve repeats, a little numb, like it’s the only word he knows. “No,” he clears his throat, tries again to string letters together. “No, it wasn’t. Either. Of those.”

“You’re not makin’ any sense here, Stevie.”

And Steve’s mouth is desert dry, and his heart _hurts_ for the pace it’s keeping, and he’s made a lot of leaps but never one that stood to lose as much as this and—

“You know I love the fuck out of you, right punk?”

Steve doesn’t think he heard that quite right, honestly. Pretty sure he didn’t hear that right, at all.

“You,” he starts, and his pulse is fast and fierce enough to jump right into Bucky’s hand at a glance, here and now; “You…”

“I _love_ you,” Bucky says, strong but wavering, shivering a little where only Steve would ever notice, where only Steve could ever hear. “I’ve been in love with you my whole fucking life, and there’s never been anyone I felt more for, never anyone who mattered more than you.”

And Bucky heaves a sigh, looks lighter, and of course.

Of course, it’s Bucky who jumps first. Who gives. Who saves Steve from drowning; from himself.

The first and only shield Steve Rogers has ever needed, ever wanted to hold against his pounding heart and _keep_.

And whatever questions Steve thinks he might want to ask, whatever things he wants to clarify on either end, in either century: they’re secondary to the need to be sure of this, to feel it beyond doubting.

So Steve gets to his feet, and watches Bucky do the same as he rounds the table, as he reaches, as he puts hands on Bucky’s body, one at the cheek and one at the hip and leans.

Those lips are the sweetest thing the universe has ever made, and Steve doesn’t just get a taste of them.

He gets to devour them, over and over, until neither one of them can breathe, except to breathe each other. He gets to fall asleep, safe; loved beyond any hope in him, dead or alive or glowing with overcome _joy_ —he gets to sleep, safe.

His shield pressed close against his chest.

__________________________

It’s been the best couple of months of Bucky's unnaturally long life. He’s so in love it shouldn’t be possible, like, the universe shouldn't be able to hold it in, but there it is. And if he questions whether it’s real, he just has to look at Steve, because it’s right there, too.

And while he would have taken any of Tony’s ludicrous suggestions for the arm in exchange for this, for Steve, for _them_ , and wouldn’t have uttered a single complaint (out loud), Tony’s surprisingly gracious, and when time comes for the limb switcheroo, the new model is lighter, stronger, gorgeous. 

Has a flamethrower option that actually comes in handy, both in battle once and also when they were having a bitch of a time lighting the grill.

It’s also great to have the extra durability, the sheer _strength_ of the Vibranium as he lifts Steve against the wall and braces them both as he fucks them into oblivion, so it’s all good, honestly.

There’s just, one thing.

“I’m not complaining,” Steve starts, panting heavy and hard against Bucky's collarbone as they come down from their… fifth?

Fifth orgasms of the night, each, respectively. He’s pretty sure it’s the fifth. Thereabouts.

“Tread carefully, punk,” Bucky huffs, equally breathless, his hands carding through Steve’s hair. “You could come again before we go to sleep, or you could not. Your call.”

Steve snorts. “I told you,” and he presses a kiss to the hollow of Bucky’s throat, dragging the barest hint of teeth against sweat-slick skin until Bucky shivers through it in the best possible way in the whole fucking world.

“Not complaining.”

“Fine,” Bucky says, dropping his own kiss to Steve’s temple as his chest stops heaving quite so hard. “What’s up?”

“The finger thing.”

Oh, god.

“Like I said, _not_ complaining. Like, _at all_ ,” and Bucky believes it. He’d have believed that before Steve said it, because Steve moans like nothing else the whole way through, every time, and in reality, Bucky’s probably lucky it’s just the one finger, with a lot of inaccessible controls to enable it: otherwise, it could get very messy, instead of very fucking sexy. 

At least, according to Steve.

“But I’m curious,” Steve says, having caught his breath mostly back. “Your idea, or Stark’s?”

And Bucky sighs, and considers lying to make himself look good, but right now they’ve been fucking in the living room. 

And, as Bucky recalls, common areas of the Tower are available for a certain dickhead’s viewing.

So instead of answering, he flips off the all-seeing camera of everywhere with the lubricating-finger Stark had seen fit to “offer as input”—of course that bastard would make it his _middle_ finger—and then flips Steve over to show him that curiosity, well.

It’s highly overrated.

__________________________

And if Tony receives an anonymous fondue set by courier the next day, it's not a fucking ‘thank you’ gift.

It's an ‘okay fine sometimes you're not entirely full of shit, but if we're not going back to that epic resort place I still want to mooch off your free melted cheese’ gift. And it's _anonymous_ , so it could be from anyone. Because _everyone_ likes free melted cheese, okay?

Get it right.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehamers.tumblr.com).


End file.
